1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to portable computing devices and workflow processing of electronic documents, and in particular, the present invention relates to a system and method for automatic or semi-automatic selection of a processing provider.
2. Description of the Background Art
The use of portable computing devices has become commonplace for many users. In addition to having a conventional desktop computer, many users also have some type of portable computing device. Examples of present-day computing devices include electronic devices for reading such as the Reader from Sony Corp., the Kindle from Amazon, and the Nook from Barnes & Noble. Smaller portable computing devices include a plethora of smart phones including the iPhone from Apple Computer Inc., the Blackberry from Research In Motion and the Pre from Palm just to name a few. There have also been increased sales of notebook laptops and tablet computers offering different levels of processing capability and size.
One particular problem with such prior art devices is that portable computing devices often have limited computational capabilities. In order to be able to perform a number of complex and more sophisticated tasks, the prior art has developed methods of coupling the portable computing devices to the “cloud” (network of interconnected service or processing providers). The coupling of the portable computing devices to the cloud allows the many complex calculations and other computationally intensive actions to be divided in a workflow that uses both the portable computing device and cloud. For example, a workflow is often divided between using the portable computing devices for receiving input and instructions and presenting data, while other parts of the system/cloud are used to manipulate electronic documents and perform other complex calculations.
This process of associating portable computing devices with service or processing providers can be complicated, cumbersome and difficult for the user of the portable computing device. The process is complicated by the creation of ecosystems in which various service providers or processing providers advertise or offer their services (often the same service) to the users of the portable computing devices. For example, an individual user may want optical character recognition (OCR) to be performed on an electronic document to make the text searchable. There are numerous service providers or processing providers that offer such services; however, they have various prizes, varying levels of quality, varying levels of responsiveness as well as a variety of other factors. It is often difficult for an individual user of the portable computing but device two select from the myriad of possible service providers or processing providers that are able to perform a particular function.
The process of selecting a service or processing provider is further complicated by a myriad of attributes or factors that are used to evaluate different service or processing providers. There can be tens of different factors that may be important to different users in selecting a service or processing provider. Furthermore, different factors are important to different users. The prior art in most instances provides very limited or no way to evaluate attributes of service or processing providers.